DL Open Thread: Sunday, November 28, 2021

Federal COVID Relief Has Been Unfairly Maligned.  It’s doing a lot of good:

To date, the federal government has allocated $4.52 trillion in response to Covid-19 — a staggering figure, one that exceeds the entire federal budget in 2019. Most of that funding comes from just two bills: the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act, passed in March 2020 ($2.2 trillion), and the American Rescue Plan Act, or A.R.P., from March 2021 ($1.9 trillion). These bills covered a huge range of funding, much of it focused on short-term recovery: Together, they allocated more than $1 trillion in direct aid to Americans in economic need, including $464 billion for additional unemployment benefits and $695 billion for stimulus checks, and also allocated nearly $428 billion for programs to aid small businesses.

But the two bills also made huge investments in the future. In many cases, the small-business aid enabled companies to pivot, by investing in new technologies and retraining workers. And the bills funneled enormous sums into industries for needs that stretch far beyond Covid: $390 billion for health care, $79.3 billion for the transportation sector and $716 billion for states and localities, much of it for modernization efforts. “The pandemic revealed the brittleness of American infrastructure, including automation and broadband,” says Ryan Calo, a founding director of the University of Washington Tech Policy Lab. “It’s a once-in-a-​generation idea that the government would invest so massively in infrastructure. You have to address problems not only of today but that you anticipate to be perhaps a decade or so down the line.”

Tell me again why the D’s are on the defensive.  Mush-mouthed ‘moderate’ messengers.  If you read only one article today, make it this one.  Might just brighten your mood.

QNuts And Rittenhouse At War–With Each Other.  The kind of battle where you root for both sides to lose:

Kyle Rittenhouse has attracted the ire of the QAnon sphere for saying that he fired his lawyer, Lin Wood, over Wood’s QAnon beliefs.

“We fired him, because he was, like, going on with all this QAnon and election fraud stuff and just stuff we don’t agree with,” Rittenhouse said.

“He’s insane… how he thinks he’s God and he just says all these weird things. Like ‘we’re going to keep that boy in jail because there’s not gonna be any … civil or criminal cases come the election,’ which is just complete insanity,” added Rittenhouse.

QAnon influencer John Sabal, better known as QAnon John, posted a message on Wednesday to his 71,265 subscribers, writing: “Not too smart to shit where you sleep, Kyle…” while linking out to the interview where Rittenhouse made those comments.

Rittenhouse also blasted Wood and lawyer John Pierce for raising $2 million as a legal defense fund for him that he said they used “for their own benefit.”

“Please know that while I am not happy with those individuals and entities engaged in the most recent false accusations against me related to my efforts a year ago for Kyle Rittenhouse, I forgive them and I pray for them. They are influenced by the enemy and know not what they do,” Wood wrote.

Wood goes down yet another rabbit hole, now claims that ‘Stop The Steal’ is a ‘deep-state plot’.

Infrastructure Bill Will Help Control Western ‘Mega-Fires’.  Man, I’m just full of good cheer today.  (Not to be alarmed–I’ve got a massive screed for tomorrow.)

Rethugs Rigging Results Via Redistricting.  Don’t look away.  Here’s a case study from Ohio.  Oh, and don’t look for help from the courts, particularly the Supreme Court.

‘All Or Nothing’ Abortion Case Heads To Supreme Court.  What? I was gonna leave you with nothing to worry about?

What do you want to talk about?